Cranford native Box Brown publishes 'Andre the Giant' graphic novel

He had trouble squeezing into the school bus in his hometown ... so he often got a ride to and from classes from famous playwright Samuel Beckett.

CRANFORD — It was a feeling of kinship with a gigantic legend that brought Cranford native Box Brown to write his graphic novel "Andre the Giant, Life and Legend," published in May.

Box Brown is the professional name of 34-year-old Cranford High School graduate Brian Brown, who was first called “Box” while studying at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania.

Andre the Giant — real name Andre Roussimoff — was a world-famous professional wrestler from France who stood more than 7 feet tall and was said to have weighed 520 pounds at the peak of his career. Andre died in 1993 at age 46.

“I was always into wrestling, so one day in 2002, I just happened to be looking up Andre,” Brown said today, describing the genesis of his new book.

Cranford native Box Brown at one of the book signings for his new graphic novel titled 'Andre the Giant, Life and Legend. Photo by John Kinhart.

Reading about the wrestling legend and actor who starred in the 1987 film “The Princess Bride,” Brown learned that Andre as a boy was much larger than other children. This was a result of a condition called gigantism cause by his body's over-production of growth hormone. He had trouble squeezing into the school bus in his hometown of Molien, France, so he often got a ride to and from classes from famous playwright Samuel Beckett — an acquaintance of Andre's father.

“I thought that would make a cool story, a cool comic,” Brown said, explaining that he then starting drawing and writing several mini comics about Andre the Giant. “The next thing you know, I just kept on making Andre stories one after another.”

Brown submitted his work to New York-based First Second Books, which has published his work into a graphic novel.

More material for the the book came from a biography about Andre produced by the A&E cable TV channel that Brown saw on television.

“In that biography, they delved into a lot more about his life,” Brown said. “He was a super interesting guy.”

The program showed some old photographs of Andre, Brown said, and it talked about the medical condition that caused him a lot of pain and shortened his life.

“It was fascinating to me right away,” he said. Being a wrestling fan “and seeing the behind-the-scenes stuff, the things you don't see on TV wrestling matches, was amazing.”

Brown notes that, “Even though on the surface Andre's life was so amazing and fabulous — jet-setting all over the world, being on TV, and he was pretty much a movie star — I think the other side of the coin was that he actually experienced a lot of loneliness and suffered from a lot pain a lot of the time. He didn't feel like he could fit in with the rest of the human race, in a way.”

Brown spoke of a kinship he discovered with Andre, who was also called a "gentle giant."

“I identified with that,” Brown said. “I was kind of a weird person who was into comics and not good at sports. I felt like that in my life that I didn't fit it.”